Damage to or loss of the skin can be a very serious injury, resulting in extreme pain, disfigurement, mutilation, and frequently death. Medical and surgical treatment of severely burned people is very time-consuming and expensive, and requires elaborate equipment and highly-trained personnel. Extensive scarring and wound contracture can lead to physiological, emotional and societal impairment.
Skin loss or injury is most commonly caused by fire or scalding, by mechanical or chemical injury, or by skin lesions. Since burns are the most common cause of skin injury, burn injury is referred to herein; however, it should be understood that, with possible minor exceptions known to those who are skilled in the art, the treatment of skin loss or damage caused by any type of injury or disease may be conducted according to the methods of this invention.
A person or animal that suffers from a burn, injury, disease, or removal of all or a portion of the skin or an organ is referred to herein as a "patient." An area of the body where tissue has been lost, damaged, diseased, or surgically removed is referred to herein as a "wound" or a "woundbed." An area of intact skin or organ from which cells are harvested, or a cell bank or tissue culture from which cells are harvested or otherwise taken, is referred to herein as a "donor site." Tissue that is regenerated by cell growth upon a wound is referred to herein as "neodermal," "neoepidermal," or "neo-organ" tissue.